by Mike Maden
“We had to deal with the heroin trade in the Sand Box,” Pearce said. “It was a primary revenue source for the bad guys. Some of our guys got caught up into it, too.”
Myers took another sip of coffee. Pearce drank his tea.
“Mike briefed you on the ambush of the Marinas?” Myers asked.
“Yeah. Somebody obviously leaked. They find out who?”
“Not yet. Probably doesn’t matter. If they find the guy—or gal—there’ll just be another one next time. I’m afraid the Castillos were sending us a message, and they set those poor young Marines on fire to make sure we got it. They want us to know that the Mexican government can’t fight this war, let alone win it.”
“And neither can you, at least not with American troops. Otherwise, you’ve broken one of your campaign promises, right?”
“It wasn’t just an empty campaign promise to win votes. Too much blood and too much treasure have already been spent fighting the War on Terror for more than a decade now. If we invade Mexico, we’re probably in for another ten years of bloody warfare. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be worth it. I’m not even saying we couldn’t win it. But the American people don’t have the will to start another war right now, let alone to make the necessary sacrifices to see it through.”
“So what’s your plan? Where do I fit in?”
“I can’t fight and win the drug war. But I’ve got to send my own message. I can’t control what Castillo does in Mexico, but I’ve got to keep him from crossing the border at will and killing American citizens with impunity.”
“Hire more Border Patrol agents. Call up the National Guard. Seal the border.”
“Can’t. At least not now. The budget freeze cuts across every department of government, Border Patrol included. And troops on the border are considered racist, fascist, and xenophobic by the rabid left and increasingly so by the middling center. Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass what they think, but the political reality is that the moderates in Congress won’t authorize troops on the border or slash other welfare programs to beef up the Border Patrol. More important, a great deal of trade takes place across that border. We gum it up too much, and we hurt the economies of both countries.”
“That doesn’t leave many options,” Pearce observed. “Maybe it’s best to let this dog lie.”
“I was raised with the belief that action is morality. It’s quoted so often it’s a cliché now, but Burke’s aphorism is still true. All it takes for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.”
Pearce shook his head. “The only problem with that kind of thinking is that every zealot with a suicide vest thinks he’s the good guy fighting evil, even when the bus he blows up is full of innocent civilians.”
“I’m not talking about ideology or politics. I’m no moral crusader. I’m talking about putting down a rabid dog before it bites somebody else. My job is to save American lives. I think that’s something you understand quite well.”
Once again, Pearce had to process for a moment. “So what do you want to do?”
“I believe in Occam’s razor. In this case, the simplest solution is the best one. I want to send Castillo a clear message. Blood for blood. I’m convinced he killed my son, so I’m going to kill one of his sons. Tit-for-tat.”
“A telegram would be cheaper.”
“I’m willing to pay the price,” Myers said.
“Why only one son if they’re both killers?”
“So Castillo won’t retaliate. He gets to keep one son alive if he keeps a cool head. The dead son will be a daily reminder to him to keep his war on his side of the border.”
“But what if he does retaliate? You take out his other son? Then he retaliates again. Then what do you do?”
“You were CIA. You must have read about the Phoenix Program?” She was referring to the CIA program that assassinated key Vietcong leaders during the Vietnam War.
“We studied it. A lot of mistakes were made.”
“But according to William Colby, the North Vietnamese said that the Phoenix Program was the most effective thing we ever did during the entire war.”
“Of course he’d say that. It was his program.”
“You think he lied about it?”
“I have no way of knowing. It was before my time.”
Pearce had mixed feelings about that war. His father had served in it and eventually died from it. “What I do know is that the Phoenix Program killed nearly thirty thousand Vietnamese.”
“I only want to kill one Mexican.”
“And that’s where my company comes in.”
“Yes. But it must be kept secret.”
“Who else knows about this, besides you, me, and Early?”
“Sandy Jeffers, my chief of staff, and the attorney general.”
“What does she say about all of this?”
“You don’t strike me as someone overly concerned with matters of the law.”
“I have people to worry about.”
“Without getting into the specifics, you’re operating under my authority as commander in chief, the same way President Obama dispatched SEAL Team snipers to take out the Somali pirates.”
“Our situation is a little different. We’re private contractors.”
“Then just think of it as a private contract for taking out the garbage.”
“And if this thing goes south?”
“Doubting yourself, Mr. Pearce?”
“Not at all. But humor me.”
“Then I’ll have your back. Mike will vouch for me.”
“He already did. I just wanted to hear it from you.”
“Is that why you’re recording our conversation?” Myers asked. It was an educated guess.
“Trust, but verify. In case I’m not around,” Pearce said. “Speaking of trust, why isn’t Greyhill in the loop?”
“I take it you don’t follow politics very closely. We had a shotgun wedding. Only the shotgun was pointed at me.”
“Is the operation covert or clandestine?” Pearce chose his words carefully. “Covert” actions fell under Title 50 of the U.S. Code, “clandestine” under Title 10. What Pearce was really asking was: are you notifying the armed services committees or the intelligence committees about this action?
“Neither. Or both. It’s irrelevant. This is a tactical operation. Congress doesn’t have the right to micromanage national security.”
“In other words, you want to keep this secret because your political opponents would make a lot of hay over this, even if it does go right.”
“I need to keep this secret because if I publicly shame Castillo, he’d be forced to retaliate.”
Myers locked eyes with Pearce. All her cards were on the table.
“Are you in or out?” she asked.
Pearce had an instructor at the Farm. He was one of the original cold warriors with the missing fingernails to prove it. The old man had drilled the Hagakure into their heads like sixteen-penny nails into wet lumber. Even now he could hear the spymaster’s raspy voice in his head.
The warrior makes all of his decisions within the span of seven breaths.
Pearce took just two.
Old habits die hard.
“Better call Mike back in,” Pearce said.
Myers pressed the intercom. “Please send Mr. Early back in.”
Early came in, a fresh cup of coffee in his hand. “You want me to throw this bum out?” he asked with a smile.
Pearce pushed out the chair next to him with his foot. Early fell into it. Pearce turned to Myers.
“No JAG lawyers looking over my shoulder. No bean counters asking for receipts. No squawking when I hand you guys the bill—and it’s gonna be a doozy. I do this my way, with my team, no questions. Are we clear on that?”
Myers and Early both nodded. “Agreed,” Myers added.
“I’m also going to need access to DEA intelligence and NSA databases, at least the ones my firm hasn’t already hacked. Without their knowledge, of course.”
“Mike will handle all of that,” Myers said.
“One more thing. I’m going to need you to flip the switch on DAS down there.”
“DAS?” Early asked.
“Domain Awareness System,” Myers said. “The domestic version is up and running in New York City. You know, like that TV show, Person of Interest. Links all of the CCTV cameras, criminal databases, public records, and just about every other surveillance or intelligence database to a central processing hub for total information awareness.”
Both men’s faces posed the same question to her. How do you know about DAS?
Myers grinned. “My company subcontracted some of the DAS software package on an NSA contract a few years back. The NSA uses a more robust suite of assets for covert surveillance in noncompliant cities. Deep web stuff.” She was referring to the fact that NSA was tapped into every major telecom, search engine, and ISP around the world, by either tacit agreement or covert operation, often through backdoor software and compromised system components. Essentially, there wasn’t a private or public database in the world that NSA couldn’t break into, especially in Latin America. “But isn’t deploying DAS a little bit of overkill, Mr. Pearce?”
“Pulling the trigger is always the easy part. Target acquisition is the name of the game. I can’t shoot ’em if I can’t see ’em. The more data we have, the better. We want to crack open as many of the Mexican intel databases as we can, but phone records, driver’s licenses, and car registrations will go a long way, too.”
“So long as we can do that without alerting the Mexican government. I want to keep this as limited as possible. One kill, one message. End this thing, or at least contain it,” Myers said.
“Suits me fine. One kill, one job, and we’re done. I doubt you’ll be able to stop at one and I don’t have any intention of standing under the tree after we swat the hornets’ nest.”
“Understood, Mr. Pearce. One job and you’re done,” Myers agreed.
“If you can spare him, I’d like Mike to liaison for us.”
“He’s all yours, Mr. Pearce.” Myers stood up, extended Pearce her hand. He took it. She had a firm grip.
“I’m just glad we never met,” she smiled.
17
Pearce Systems Research Facility, Dearborn, Michigan
Pearce stood with Udi Stern next to an oversize treadmill. The former Israeli paratrooper was three inches shorter than Pearce, but broader in the chest.
“Go ahead, Udi. Try.” Dr. Rao smiled.
Udi smiled nervously at her. “I don’t want to break it,” he said, in heavily accented English.
“You won’t,” she said.
Udi stepped closer to the Petman 3, a third-generation Boston Dynamics humanoid robot that was on loan to Pearce Systems. It was jogging at exactly five miles per hour on the treadmill. Its legs pumped effortlessly, and the combat boots it wore pounded on the oversize treadmill’s rubber pad in a faultless heel-and-toe strike.
Dr. Rao’s team had recently perfected the software that enabled it to run for the first time, and she had renamed the robot “Usain Bolts” after the famous Jamaican runner. But the experimental drone was still a headless mechanical monster with a skinless aluminum-titanium frame, the stuff of science-fiction nightmares. On its chest it wore a black case that housed the video sensor package.
Udi lifted his own steel-toed boot and lightly kicked the Petman 3, but the robot barely budged. It was still connected to a thick power cable hanging down from overhead, but the cable was providing no physical support.
“She said to try and knock it over, not ask it for a date,” Pearce said.
Udi’s dark eyes narrowed. He threw a hard side kick into the robot’s hip. Usain Bolts was shoved hard to the left, but it never broke stride, and quickly returned to center.
“Try using your hands,” Dr. Rao suggested. “Give it a good shove.”
Udi spit in both hands, lowered himself, then lunged at the upper torso, careful to not catch himself in the rapidly pumping arms. He whacked it good. The robot’s upper torso twisted violently away from Udi. Its right arm windmilled high while its left arm swung low to help it keep balance. The twisting torso also twisted the hips, and the legs followed the hips. Just as it looked like it was about to crash, the robot did a quick shuffling step, turned on the balls of its feet without losing stride, and righted itself again. Within moments, it was jogging once again in the center of the broad treadmill.
Pearce laughed. “I knew I should’ve brought your wife instead.”
“Can you imagine a platoon of these parachuting out of the sky, then racing through the enemy’s streets? The psychological impact alone would be devastating.” Dr. Rao’s eyes gleamed with awe at the future soldier she was helping to create.
“This place always makes me depressed,” Udi lamented.
“Not to worry. It will be at least five more years before you’re obsolete.” She giggled, patting Udi on his thick shoulder.
Pearce shook his head, incredulous. “Thanks for the demo. We’d better push on to the main event.”
* * *
Inside the brightly lit conference room at the lab, Dr. Rao engaged a large video monitor on the center table with a tablet device in her hand. Pearce and Udi stood next to her. The other operators Pearce had selected for the Castillo mission were already doing advance work in Mexico or prepping the computer and communications networks.
Rao opened the hinged lid of a small aluminum case that was also on the table.
She reached into the case and lifted something out with a pair of tweezers and set it on the pad. “Watch the monitor, please.”
She tapped the tablet in her hand and a live image of Udi’s clasped, hairy hands popped onto the screen. When Udi realized those were his hands, he moved them, suddenly self-conscious.
“Hey! A mini spy camera. Nice,” Udi said.
“Oh, no. Much more than that,” Rao said. “Watch.”
Rao engaged the tablet again, and the image on the monitor turned toward the ceiling tiles, then rocketed for one of them. The camera looked like it was going to crash into the ceiling, but instead, it stopped abruptly. The image on the monitor turned upside down, and now Rao, Pearce, and Udi were on the monitor far below. Within a second, however, the image righted itself and enlarged to full frame on the monitor.
“Now let’s have some fun.” Rao punched another button, and the lights shut off. The room was pitch-black, but a new infrared image appeared on the video monitor. Blue wire-mesh overlays—facial recognition software—instantly engaged, scanning all three faces. In less than a second, the blue lines flashed red.
“Apparently none of us is Aquiles Castillo,” Dr. Rao said. “If one of us had been, the appropriate facial image would have flashed green.”
“Impressive,” Pearce said.
Rao pressed another virtual button on her tablet. The lights snapped back on and the monitor displayed a swift, uneven flight back toward the black box. The onboard camera hovered just an inch above it for a moment. Five more miniature mosquito drones were parked in the box. Rao tapped one last button and the camera eye landed on the black foam padding inside the box, the last image displayed before the monitor shut off.
Udi and Pearce exchanged a glance.
“Amazing. But they look very fragile,” Udi said.
“Open your hand, please,” Rao said. She picked up one of the mosquito drones between her elegant fingers and dropped it into Udi’s broad open palm.
“I can hardly feel it,” Udi said. He raised and lowered his open hand like a measuring scale. “In fact, I really can’t feel it at all.” Udi brought his hand close to his face.
“It looks exactly like a little mosquito. Incredible.”
Rao picked up another one and handed it to Pearce. He examined it closely as well.
“They’re surprisingly durable. And they’re so light, our targets won’t notice they’re on them until it’s too late,” Rao said.
“W
hat’s the battery life?” Udi asked.
“Two hours maximum. But they can tap into a light fixture, a lightbulb, even the static electricity on human skin, and recharge.”
“How does facial recognition work with identical twins? They share the same DNA,” Pearce asked.
“Identical twins aren’t truly identical. That’s a misnomer. Even their fingerprints aren’t the same. It’s like your own face. The left side of your face is always slightly different from the right side, even though it’s all the same DNA,” Rao said.
“How many are we deploying?” Pearce asked.
“Six mosquito drones. Three lethals for Aquiles. They have a blue mark on the belly. The other three carry nonlethal identity chips for tracking Ulises. All six are already charged and preprogrammed with the correct facial target recognition.”
“Why six bugs? Why not just two?” Udi asked as he examined his bug more closely. It really did look like a tiny aluminum mosquito with tissue-thin wings.
“Redundancy. Maybe the bad guys own a fly swatter. Who knows what you may encounter. Besides, we’re not paying for them.” Rao smiled. “Any other questions?”
“Range? Limitations?” Pearce asked.
“In a windless environment, a two-hour charge will get you a half mile maximum, flying straight. Any kind of wind resistance drops that considerably, as does maneuvering around objects. Windspeed above five miles per hour will be extremely problematic, even prohibitive. These drones are really designed for close indoor operations. They operate independently, day or night.” She held up the tablet. “Use this to activate them or make programming changes, but otherwise, you don’t need it for flight controls unless you want to. Their Achilles’ heel, obviously, is that you have to have some sort of a delivery system that can deposit them safely within the operating environment.”
“I’ve got a delivery system in mind.” Pearce pointed at Udi. “Him.”
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Two days later, two gorgeous women in bikinis rocketed across the deep blue water of the Gulf of California in a sparkling white ski boat. It was a perfect day in paradise beneath a brilliant, cloudless sky. The occasional gull swooped overhead.